


Liar's Eyes

by cilceon



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:53:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26266792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cilceon/pseuds/cilceon
Summary: “No. No you’re good.” Her voice was small, she though it was silly she was getting flustered. It was just Deacon.Wanderer’s hair was like silk, and it slipped between his fingers with ease as he began to cross over the strands.“Technically I had a mom, but she died when I was hardly a teenager.” Why was she suddenly so nervous? “I don’t have many memories of her.”“A part of me wanted to think pre-war folks didn’t have to worry about not having their parents.” Deacon asked before he could stop himself, he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.“You can’t really by looking at me tell thanks to my dad, but my mom was Asian.” She swallowed a tear before it could fall. “Dad always said she was too stubborn for her own good. Part of the reason I became a lawyer was for her.”“Hold on,” He interjected, “Hair’s so dark I can see the different sections.” Deacon moved back from her; the soft click click of his glasses folding. Then he set them down to the side of them. Wanderer could see them out of the corner of her eye. She made the decision not to turn around no matter what.
Relationships: Deacon/Female Sole Survivor, Deacon/Sole Survivor (Fallout)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Liar's Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> READ ME hi there! i've rewritten this story to be much better & twice as long it can be read here [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29638680) this version is still up for archival reasons.

READ THE NOTES ABOVE FOR BETTER VERSION

Wanderer was staring into an old cracked vanity mirror that was propped against the wall, trying for the fifth time to French braid her hair that night. She was never good at braids, but she was taking her turn to be on watch to attempt to get better at them.

Deacon was curled up on the sorry excuse of a bed on the opposite side of the old apartment, hopefully asleep. She couldn’t tell thanks to the glasses she was sure were glued to his face. There was no way that was comfortable.

She made a small frustrated sound and shook the braid she had attempted lose. Black hair cascading down her back. Maybe she should just wind it into a bun and be done with it. Wanderer wasn’t making progress but oh the other hand she had already gone through the effort of brushing her hair so she might as well keep going. It was already starting to get tangled again, oh how she missed conditioner.

With a sigh she reached for the brush she was lucky enough to find in the half-collapsed bathroom upon arrival. What else was she going to do? Stare out the window, wistfully at the rain on the other side? The single candle the two of them found didn’t make enough light to read by or else she would be finishing Animal Farm for a second time since high school.

“You’re going to rip all your hair out brushing it like that.” Deacon’s voice made her jump, causing her to hand to flinch and pull her hair with it.

“Jesus, Dee I thought you were asleep.” She sucked in a breath with the newly added sting of her scalp.

The man behind her sat up, stretching his arms above his head. “Just woke up Wands. What are you doing to your head?”

She rolled her eyes and shot him a look. “I’m _trying_ to French braid my hair, it’s not going well.”

Deacon walked around the candle, picking it up as he went then setting down and sat next to her. “Like the country?”

Wanderer gave a small smile before explaining how the braid was supposed to work not sure if he was joking or not. “It starts at the top then goes down the back, but I can’t get the top right.”

“Oh, a vine braid.” He suggested.

“Vine?” She echoed; linguistics was an interesting thing.

“Do you want me to give it a go?” He tilted his head to the side with the question.

She eyed him suspiciously, “And the baldest man in the Commonwealth knows how to braid hair?”

“What? Don’t you know? All us bald guys take classes on it, there’s a monthly meeting in Dimond City and everything. We have competitions to see who can braid hair the fastest. Nick always wins but I’ve gotten close a few times.”

“Alright, alright. It’s not like you could do a worse job than what I’ve been attempting.” She turned from Deacon, to give him access to her hair.

Deacon picked up the brush from the floor then slid his other hand under her hair so the bristles of the brush would hit his palm and not her neck. “It’s not often I get to see ya’ with your hair down boss.”

“It’s took long, gets in the way if it’s down all the time.” She explained, “But I’ve been growing it out since I was a little girl and can’t bring myself to cut it.”

“And what would we do without the bobby pin pit that you have up there?” He wasn’t exaggerating, when she twisted her hip length hair into a bun, she would shove any pin she could find to keep it in place. It saved their asses more times than she could count, with her affinity for opening any lock they came across and everything.

Maybe that was why Deacon kept her around. “I never noticed how thin and soft your hair is.” He said over her shoulder.

“Thanks, I got it from my mom. Believe it or not hers was even darker than mine.” She spoke to her hands clasped in front of her.

Deacon gasped theatrically, “You have a mother?! Why did you never tell me?”

She brought her hand back and thwapped him on the knee before moving it to run through her now tangle free hair, shifting out the creases from her previous attempts. It moved like the rain outside, dark, black and entrancing. Deacon inched closer to her and raised his own hands up towards his hair.

“Ouchy, but seriously. Her hair was darker than yours? That’s hard to believe.” Deacon took a breath, and broke the surface of her hair, splitting it apart into sections.

Wanderer’s breath hitched in turn, suddenly realizing how intimate the moment was. Deacon faltered for a moment, but when Wanderer didn’t ask him to stop, he continued **.** “Did I snag it by accident?”

“No. No you’re good.” Her voice was small, she though it was silly she was getting flustered. It was just Deacon.

Wanderer’s hair was like silk, and it slipped between his fingers with ease as he began to cross over the strands.

“Technically I had a mom, but she died when I was hardly a teenager.” Why was she suddenly so nervous? “I don’t have many memories of her.”

“A part of me wanted to think pre-war folks didn’t have to worry about not having their parents.” Deacon asked before he could stop himself, he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

“You can’t really by looking at me tell thanks to my dad, but my mom was Asian.” She swallowed a tear before it could fall. “Dad always said she was too stubborn for her own good. Part of the reason I became a lawyer was for her.”

“Hold on,” He interjected, “Hair’s so dark I can see the different sections.” Deacon moved back from her; the soft _click click_ of his glasses folding. Then he set them down to the side of them. Wanderer could see them out of the corner of her eye. She made the decision not to turn around no matter what.

She kept looking at the glasses as Deacon brought forward strands from the front of her face, the rough pads of his fingers gently gracing the tips of her ears as he passed over. They were warm.

“If your mom was anything like you, she must have been one hell of a lady.” Deacon spoke from behind her

She closed her eyes slowly, “Yeah she really was something. Dad never went into detail but she um she got jumped walking home from the grocery store one day when I was at school and well… yeah.”

The rain was coming down louder now, just barely drowning out over the steady pounding of blood in her ears. “Damn Wands, I’m so sorry.”

“Being Asian was like being a synth Dee,” She unclenched her hands, “The big Red Menace and all that. No body carried that her family had been in the states for generations. I was ‘lucky’ that I got traits from my dad.”

His voice matched the softness of his hands as he switched the focus to himself, recognizing that this was a sensitive one for her. “My mother was a hairdresser.”

Wanderer hoped he couldn’t feel the wave of surprise that went through her. She had learned fairly quickly that Deacon hid somewhere between a grain of sand and a tablespoon of truth in every story he played out for her. Coming up on a year of her companionship, the truth was leaning on the side of tablespoon more and more.

“Was she now?” She raised an eyebrow in challenge though he couldn’t see it.

“Mhm,” He hummed with a run of his fingers through her hair, “Ma could take any bum and make them into a beauty queen. She was the best one in Rivet City.”

She titled her head to the side, “Rivet City?”

Deacon put either hand on the sides of her head and with a gentle touch, set her back to neutral then cleared his throat like he was about to recite something. “It is the largest, most developed and scientifically-advanced, native settlement in the Capital Wasteland. Its inhabitants live in individual rooms and enjoy relative safety and security inside of a pre-war aircraft carrier.”

She chuckled against his hands, “You sound like a tour guide.”

“Thanks, that’s what I was going for.” He returned his attention to the braid, she noted that he was grabbing small locks of hair. Allowing the braid to take longer to complete.

“What’s it like there? An aircraft carrier sounds pretty impressive.” She closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling of his hands running through her hair.

He thought for a moment before answering, maybe deciding how much truth to weave in, “Ma loved it. But… class divisions was a big problem when I was a kid. The people of the city were divided into two annoying parts.” Deacon explained. “Us poor Hanger Decks were on one side and the Upper Deck citizens were on the other.”

“Like in Dimond City?” She moved to look at him, but her attention was kept forward with the remembrance that his glasses were off. She settled for glanced at him through the corner of her eye. The hazy light of the candle preventing her from seeing any detail of his face.

He tapped the top of her head, noting what she was doing, “In a way…the distinction wasn’t as cosmetic as it is in The Great Green Jewel. Hangers get red lung real often; you know what that is?”

“Isn’t that from rust?” She suggested, remembering a case an old co-worker had worked for the shipwright’s union.

She saw Deacon nod slightly from behind her. “Yeah, caused by breathing in rust particles. The walls of the lower decks flake off the bastards. We just had to deal with the short straw of accommodations than those in the Upper Decks. Since we also lived close to mirelurk-filled lower parts of the ship, we were under the constant risk of being killed by the rampaging crabs if security lapsed in their patrols.”

His hand moved over the shell of her ear again. Wanderer had to restrain herself from leaning into the touch, “That had to be had for you as a kid. Living in fear like that.”

“It’s how it goes for all of us.” The words came out nonchalantly, but he let here hear the undertone of sadness. “Still, the lower decks were safer and most people there lead better lives than wastelanders outside the ship. I’ve heard that for about the last ten years or so there’s been a new guy name Harkness in charge of security. I guess he’s a solid guy, a real Preston Garvey.”

Wanderer found herself rolling her eyes again. One thing Deacon didn’t make a secret of was his opinion of Preston. He though her lieutenant was too naive but wouldn’t elaborate on it when pressed.

She decided to bring it up again. “You don’t like Preston.” Wanderer learned early on that the best way to get him to answer a question for her to state it as a fact for him to play with.

Deacon pulled the braid taught, causing Wanderer to let out a soft “ow” It was empty, though. The two of them knew he would never actually hurt her.

“Are you insinuating that the man drives me bonkers but not in the fun way?” He leaned over her shoulder to try and gauge the expression on her face. She looked anywhere but his eyes.

He took the glasses off to see her hair better, there wasn’t a need to over-read the situation.

“I might be implying it, yes.” she said, watching a small smile grace his lips. Satisfied with her response, Deacon returned back to finishing the job at hand.

“He just… I dunno Wands.” He was doing a normal braid down the rest of her hair now and was nearing the end.

“How does it look?” It was her turn to change topics.

He sighed. “Not my best work but you’d still be able to pull it off.”

Wanderer felt warmth rise in her cheeks, it was like she just drank a shot of alcohol. “Deacon, we both know I can pull anything off.”

“Oh?” He said, a tinge of curiosity to his tone but he didn’t elaborate into it. “Alrighty boss twirl around and let me fix up the front.”

She did as he asked and shuffled around on the dirty floor, turning to face him. Wanderer kept her eyes on the seams of the floorboards.

He lent forward and teased a few strands of her hair free. They fell down around her face, gently cupping it. Deacon twisted the strand around his finger, training it into a soft curl. 

“There,” he said, voice suddenly sounding too quiet as Wanderer’s eyes met his own for the first time.

Blue…no, grey. The sky right after it stopped raining, flecks of blue scattered about them. He wore the glasses to hide more than his expressions she discovered, crow’s feet, surgery couldn’t halt from returning hinted to what his actual age could be. Her heart pulled at her, the soft tinge of purple under his eyes indicated a truth she already knew. He had the eyes of a liar.

She blamed the soft diffused din of the candle on them shifting into something else.

There was a warmth behind that sadness, a hint of color that wasn’t just pigmentation- but life, and it glinted at her expectantly. 

Deacon “How does it look?” his voice was low, gravelly almost.

She swallowed, turning towards the cracked vanity. “It- it look’s good, Dee” She cleared her throat, and brushed the curl slightly away from her eye. “Beautiful.”


End file.
